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Original Sins
Original Sins is the first volume of the Hellblazer collections and pulls together the first nine issues of the series. Publisher's description John Constantine is an unconcerned, somewhat amoral occultist with a British working-class background. He's a hero, of sorts, who manages to come out on top through a combination of luck, trickery, and genuine magical skill. The Original Sins collection is a loosely connected series of tales of John's early years where Constantine was at his best and at his worst, all at the same time. Storylines collected For detailed plot synopses, see the issues' individual wiki pages. Where a storyline spans multiple issues but has no over-arcing title, the title of the first issue is used. Hunger (Issues one and two) Constantine faces down an escaped African hunger spirit in contemporary New York, clashing with Papa Midnite and old friend Gary Lester along the way. Going for It (Issue three) On the eve of the British general election, a string of mysterious deaths put Constantine on the trail of a stockmarket dealing in human souls. Waiting for the Man (Issue four) Aided by a mysterious mage known as Zed, Constantine investigates the disappearance of his niece, Gemma Masters. When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Issue five) While investigating the mysterious Resurrection Crusade, Constantine finds himself in an Iowa town that is warping time and space with its prayers. thumb|The cover of the first edition of Original Sins Extreme Prejudice (Issue six) The Resurrection Crusade start fighting back - and to make things worse, the demon Nergal has arrived on the scene with plans of his own. Ghosts in the Machine (Issue seven) Zed is in hiding from the Crusade and Constantine's running his own game with a little help from a hacker-magus. Unfortunately, both of them are blundering into deadly traps. Intensive Care (Issue eight) Hospitalised and crippled, Constantine discovers that his only way to foil the Crusade is to accept help from Nergal - and betray Zed! Shot to Hell (Issue nine) Drunk, miserable and just turned 35, Constantine finds himself confronted by inner demons, dead friends and his own ghost. Publication history Original Sins was first published in 1993, a time when the trade paperback market was virtually unheard of. Although Garth Ennis's run on the book had made Hellblazer the second-biggest-selling Vertigo series at the time, Original Sins sold poorly. As a result, the next book to be released, in 1994, was the Garth Ennis collection Dangerous Habits. It wasn't until 2007, after a resurgence of interest created by the film adaptation Constantine, that Delano's run continued to be collected, beginning with The Devil You Know. Although Original Sins is the first in the canon series of Hellblazer collections, an earlier collection was made of the first four Hellblazer issues, and a second was made of the next four. This black-and-white reprint is long out of print. Additional material The first edition included an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Later editions included an introduction by Jamie Delano. The book also includes an article by fictional journalist 'Satchmo Hawkins' on John Constantine. Notes The cliffhanger at the end of this book is technically followed by the issue 'Infernal Triangles' from Swamp Thing, which is collected in the Swamp Thing: Spontaneous Generation book. However, readers can pick up what's happened from the next consecutive issue of Hellblazer, which is collected in The Devil You Know. Category:Hellblazer books Category:Hellblazer collections